I’m no hero in the mountains, that’s for sure, but if there’s one area in which I’m undeniably unheroic, it’s on ice. I climb 5.10 perfectly fine, ski pretty well, usually nail my technical systems, but ice…well, let’s just say there’s room for improvement.
The American Mountain Guides Association offers three disciplines within their guide training–rock, ski, and alpine. The “ice-instructor course” is a relatively new addition to the alpine curriculum. Though the beginning and advanced-alpine courses cover ice in some capacity, it’s typically “alpine ice,” which is often glacial in nature. The ice-specific course deals mainly with “water ice,” which sounds ridiculous, but climbers use the term to mean a frozen waterfall, rather than snow that’s been frozen/refrozen repeatedly, which becomes alpine ice.
Anyway, alpine is definitely my least competent discipline of the three. I grew up skiing, so the movement’s natural for me. I’ve rock climbed since high school, so while I’m not crusher strong, I comfortable with it. Alpine, on the other hand, tackles everything from glacial terrain to 5.10 at altitude to scrambly ridgelines over moderate-but-bigger mountains. Smooth, efficient transitions are key. Within the alpine track, the ice course has only existed for the past few seasons, so I’m one of the lucky ones who gets to jump yet another hurdle in the progression, but truth be told, I’m the exact reason why the course exists: I just haven’t spent a ton of time on water ice.
The last few years I’ve been getting out more, but this fall I jumped on, full-fledged. Sure, I’d led a few dozen ice routes over the years, but intermittently and never consistently enough to really relax and consider guiding challenges while moving on ice. Luckily my buddies Mike Arnold and Eli Helmuth over at ClimbingLife Guides got me out a bunch in October and November, heckling me a bit, but mostly helping to dial me in.
My original course was set for Ouray, but a warm fall meant the ice park was due to open late–the final day of our course. Backcountry ice had come in pretty well, but a huge storm cycle the week before the course bumped the avy danger into the unreasonable…and we were shut down. I rescheduled for February in North Conway–I’ve never been, the ice is fat (less scratching around on rock!), and I met two of the three instructors (Marc Chauvin and Art Mooney) on my rock-guide course last fall. They’re both mellow, but keep the standard high, so I’m psyched to be studying with them. Silas Rossi is the third instructor on the course; he’s pretty new to the instructor pool, but his rep is great and he kills it in the mountains, so I’m interested to meet him.
To keep The Fear at bay I’ve been hitting The Alpine Training Center pretty hard through the fall and early winter. Our disastrous ski season has made it easy to keep my focus on climbing, rather than getting turns, too. Connie, the owner and queen-sadist at the ATC, tailors ice-specific sessions for slayers like Sam Elias and muffin-topped punters like me, too. Core strength, plenty of hanging on tools, and endless sandbag get-ups have me in reasonable shape. I figure if I can hang on well enough to not make a fool of myself in North Conway, I’ll be able to focus on guiding and relax a bit above ice screws. We shall see!
I’m psyched for a new venue, a good crew (Arnold and Chris Burk, another Boulder dude and Colorado Mountain School guide are on the course, too), cool instructors, and taking the next step towards my alpine aspirant-exam in September. Now, if I can just keep the whimpering to a minimum in New Hampshire…
Big thanks to Fred Marmsater, Connie Sciolino, and Cameron Martindell for a few of the images within this blog.
